


Kill The Monster

by CriticalRolemance (LiveLaughLoveLarry)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (i mean it's caleb that practically goes without saying), Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Emotional Baggage, Ethical Dilemmas, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Justice, Morality, No Romance, Redemption, Revenge, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, brief moments of - Freeform, but lets be real Icky-thong deserves it, i just really need my sweet broken son to be okay okay, in the third chapter -- mostly implied but yeah take care of you, that's the main thing tbh, there are many feelings but that is not one of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 02:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLoveLarry/pseuds/CriticalRolemance
Summary: Caleb knows that his parents' deaths can't go unpunished. He still isn't sure what that means.~*~*~*~“Who will you be tomorrow?” the mage needles. “Who will you be next month? Who will you be when you no longer need these people -- or when they no longer need you?”“He’ll be Caleb,” Nott says. “He’ll be our friend. And you’ll be dead.”An eerie smile spreads across Ikithon’s face, cruel and almost crazed. “Will you kill me yourself then, Bren?” he asks. “Perhaps you aren’t quite the failure I thought. You’re racking up quite the body count.”“My name is Caleb,” Caleb says. “And I do not kill needlessly. But you-” His voice is tight, carefully controlled as he steps forward with his hands already glowing. “You are a murderer,” he says. “You made me a murderer. And now I will murder you."





	1. A Promise

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started as a glimmer of an idea of what Caleb and Vax might talk about if they ever met. The things they might share with each other and the secrets they'd keep. The things they have in common and the things that are worlds apart. That idea quickly spiralled into how that would play out moving forward -- what Caleb would take away, and how he would carry it with him. 
> 
> Huge thanks to [critical-ramblings](https://critical-ramblings.tumblr.com/) (check out their work at [Winterling42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterling42)) and to my IRL friend Andie for being amazing beta readers and helping me get some of the character details straight.

“It changes you, doesn’t it?” Vax says gently. “Losing your parents, and so young.”

Caleb nods wordlessly. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to explain. “There is so much I wish I had done differently,” he says at last. “So much I wish I could change.”

“Yeah,” Vax says. “You can’t, though.”

“I know.”

“You can only learn from it and do better next time.”

“I know,” Caleb says again. He can’t tear his eyes away from the ground. “I am trying.”

Vax is quiet for a moment, and Caleb can feel his inquiring gaze piercing through him. He closes his eyes, as though it could possibly help, as though he could ever hide anything from him. He feels like Vax can see more of him than he can even remember himself. He hopes he’s wrong. 

At last, Vax speaks again. “I lost -- well, my father is still alive, he’s just a dick. But my mother... she was killed by a dragon.” He sighs. “I wasn’t there. I couldn’t have done anything I suppose; I was young, just a teenager. But I wasn’t there. I swore -- I swore to avenge her. I swore that I would never be that helpless again. I swore that I would never leave the people I love to die defenceless and alone.”

Caleb tries not to think of Yasha, tries not to think of Astrid, tries not to think. Has he learned? Has he done better? It feels as though he keeps making the same mistakes, over and over. Even with every second chance that Dunamancy gives him, he feels like he wastes them. 

“Did it work?” he asks, rather than dwell on everything that has failed to work for him.

Vax shrugs, leaning back against the wall. “In a fashion,” he says. “I became more skilled, found more powerful friends. But I still lost people. I still hurt people. I still let people down.” There’s a moment of silence, almost as heavy as the weight Caleb can feel on Vax’s shoulders. “I did some things right, I did some things wrong,” Vax says at last. “Maybe that’s all anyone can expect.”

“And the dragon?” Caleb asks. He’s not sure he wants to know -- but he has to. 

A wide grin spreads over Vax’s face, toothy and almost cruel. “Dead,” he says. “Very dead. Died with my blade in his back and my sister’s arrow in his chest.” He looks at Caleb, his eyes alight with the memory. “Some people say vengeance is hollow. They say it’s a waste of time or effort or emotion. But some things cannot be forgiven. Some things need to be punished. That monster killed my mother. He killed countless others -- hundreds, perhaps thousands. People whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And knowing he has been wiped off the face of the planet like the scum he is… that is one of the most satisfying things I have ever felt.” 

Vax grips Caleb tightly by the shoulder, his fingers digging in in a way that perhaps should be painful but mostly feels grounding. “I hope you will feel that one day,” he says. “I hope that you will get to look the monster that killed your parents in the eye and tell it -- this is for them. This is for everything you took away from me. This is for everything I could have been. This is for everything I became in spite of you.”

And then he walks away. 

And Caleb is left wishing that such a thing were possible.


	2. For My Parents

As he hurls the fireball at Trent Ikithon, Caleb finds the words rising to his lips unbidden.

“This is for my parents!” he yells. “Now you can die the way they did.”

Ikithon’s skin is burned and blackened, his hair nearly singed off, he is bleeding in more places than Caleb can count, but in spite of it all, his eyes are clear as they find Caleb’s. They are dark and hard, two pieces of obsidian set deep into a skull that is slowly turning into just so much ash. In spite of the flames in his hands, the fire in his blood, Caleb feels ice run down his spine.

And then Ikithon begins to laugh. “You can kill me,” he says. “But it won’t bring them back. It won’t undo what you did -- what  _ we  _ did, together. It won’t free you from my magic in your blood. You can rip your own skin off but I will still be there.” 

“You shut your mouth!” Jester punctuates the order with a swing of her glowing lollipop, catching Ikithon across the back of the head. His neck snaps down, hanging low for a moment before he raises his head again, grimacing. 

“Do they know?” he asks. “Do your friends know who you are?  _ What  _ you are?”

Caleb’s face is stone. “They know,” he says. “I have told them everything. I thought they deserved the truth. A courtesy you never showed us.”

“Courtesy?” Ikithon spits, a red smear against the stone floor. “Truth is earned, boy, not given. You were a mere child. Unproven.”

“They more than earned it,” Caleb says. “And children do not know how to burn the flesh from a man’s body without killing him. We stopped being children the day we met you.”

Ikithon shrugs, wincing at the movement. “It matters little,” he says. “Truth is a liability. A vulnerability. You always were the most vulnerable of the lot. I’m only sorry I didn’t kill you when I had the chance.”

“You should have,” Caleb says. “That was your mistake -- your vulnerability. You were always so proud of your… experiments.”

“As well I should be,” Ikithon says. “You children were my prizes -- the jewels of my collection. You were going to be perfect.” He bares his teeth. “At least, you were supposed to be. How disappointed I was when you crumbled like sand at the slightest pressure.” He sighs. “A very promising failure, you were.”

“Caleb isn’t a failure,” Beau says, striking Ikithon squarely in the chest with her staff. He stumbles back, catching himself against a wall and leaning against it like it was his intention all along. His eyes never waver from Caleb’s face. 

“Caleb?” he says. “Is that what you call yourself now?”

“No,” Caleb says. “Caleb is who I am now.”

“And who will you be tomorrow?” the mage needles. “Who will you be next month? Who will you be when you no longer need these people -- or when they no longer need you?”

“He’ll be Caleb,” Nott says. “He’ll be our friend. And you’ll be dead.”

An eerie smile spreads across Ikithon’s face, cruel and almost crazed. “Will you kill me yourself then, Bren?” he asks. “Perhaps you aren’t quite the failure I thought. You’re racking up quite the body count.”

“My name is Caleb,” Caleb says. “And I do not kill needlessly. But you-” His voice is tight, carefully controlled as he steps forward with his hands already glowing. “You are a murderer,” he says. “You made me a murderer. And now I will murder you.” He places his hand on the man’s chest, feels the heat building, prepared to burn this man from the inside.

And then he feels a hand on his shoulder. “Caleb.”

He pauses. He doesn’t stop, the heat still swirling around him and through him; he can still see Ikithon wincing at his touch. But he pauses. “I’m going to kill him,” he says. “He dies today, Caduceus.”

“He dies,” Caduceus agrees. “But it doesn’t have to be like this.” His hands cover Caleb’s, cool earth on blistering fire, unhesitating despite the heat that pours from Caleb’s skin. “He trained you to be just like him,” Caduceus says. “But you’re not. Choose to be different.”

Caleb stares down at Ikithon for a long moment. He wants to burn him, wants him to die slow and painful, wants to rip out his heart and incinerate it in front of him.

But he also wants to be different.

“Fjord,” he says at last.

He feels him more than hears him as Fjord steps up beside him. “Caleb.”

“Cut off his head. Please.”

Caleb doesn’t look away from Ikithon for a second, but he can almost picture Fjord’s grim smile. “With pleasure.”

A sharp exhale, a grunt, the sound of metal on stone. And it’s done. Ikithon’s head lies bloody on the ground, his body still and lifeless. Caleb stares at him a moment longer, hardly able to believe that it’s real -- that it’s over. 

“That was for my parents,” he says at last, addressing the corpse. “That was for _me_.”

He waits to feel different -- to feel satisfied, to feel peaceful, to feel relieved, to feel accomplished. But all he feels is tired.


	3. For Me

That night, Caleb can’t sleep. He lies awake, still and unmoving, staring at the ceiling. He’s tried reading, tried meditating, tried counting moorbounders, but none of it helps. He keeps seeing -- flashes. Memories. He sees Ikithon, charred and bloody; sees his childhood home, burning rafters crashing down; sees Vera and Lorenzo and Wohn and so many others, faces that he can’t name, that he can barely recognize. He only knows that they’re dead, and that he is the reason.

He opens his eyes, trying to see through the inky blackness, straining his ears for any sign of movement, any changing breath.

Nothing.

He slips out from the covers, careful and quiet, and pads into the hallway. A lamp gives faint illumination, but the corridor is deserted and silent. Everyone is asleep. He leaves the door ajar rather than risk the click of the latch, approaching the washstand by the stairs on silent feet. 

He pours water from the jug onto his hand, wiping sweat from his face. He runs his fingers through his hair, pushing it back as he stares into the mirror, trying to see something different in his reflection.

He still looks the same. He still looks tired, looks haunted, looks broken. He still looks like a man who did unspeakable things, who carries unspeakable secrets.

He feels the press of soft fur against his ankles and looks down to see Frumpkin weaving between his legs. He sits with a sigh, gathering the cat into his lap and scratching him behind the ears in the way he knows Frumpkin likes best. Frumpkin quickly settles in a ball, purring loudly, and Caleb pets him absentmindedly, leaning against the wall.

“Why doesn’t it feel different?” he asks, as though the cat could possibly know. “It was supposed to feel different.”

Frumpkin doesn’t answer, of course, and Caleb sighs. 

A familiar head pops out into the hallway, the light just enough to make out the sharp angles of her face. “Caleb?” Beau’s voice is quiet, for once. “Is that you?”

Caleb doesn’t say anything. Beau can’t see as well in the dark as some of their companions, but she’s always been good at working from a limited framework. She pauses for a moment in the doorway, then pads down the hallway to sit next to him.

“Today was really something, huh?”

Caleb hums noncommittally. It was something. He’s not sure they have the same idea of what that something was. 

“Did I wake you?” he asks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Beau says. “And you didn’t wake me. Well -- sort of. Frumpkin woke me.”

Caleb looks down at the ball of fur still curled in his lap. “Traitor.” Frumpkin keeps purring, unperturbed.

Beau huffs out a laugh. “He just wants you to be okay,” she says. 

Silence hangs between them for a long moment. 

“Are you?” she asks at last.

“Am I what?”

“Okay.”

“Oh.”

He thinks about it. He doesn’t feel not-okay, per se, he just feels… suspended. He feels like something is incomplete, something is waiting to happen, though he couldn’t say what. 

He doesn’t know how to explain any of that, though. So he just says, “I’m okay.”

Beau looks at him for a long moment, her eyes sharp and piercing even in the dark -- perhaps especially in the dark. He wonders what she sees, wonders what she’s thinking. He won’t ask. If he did, she would respond in kind, and he’s not ready for her questions. Not when he doesn’t have the slightest idea what the answers are.

“Okay,” she says at last. “Can I pet Frumpkin?”

“I -- of course,” he says, shifting his position to allow her easier access to the cat. With twice the attention, Frumpkin’s purrs grow louder still, the vibration settling in Caleb’s bones. 

“You were good today,” Beau says after more than a full minute of silence has passed. “It was hard, but it needed to be done.”

Caleb opens his mouth, the words, “And now it is,” prepped and ready on his tongue, but they feel wrong. They feel heavy and awkward. 

If it were done, it would feel different. It would feel over. It would feel -- something,  _ Caleb _ would feel something, rather than just this hollow sense of not-quite-right.

“That man was a monster,” Beau continues. “I don’t know how people didn't see it.”

“_You _ didn’t see it,” Caleb says, “the first time you met him. He can be very charming.”

Beau looks like she’s going to spit on the floor, but thinks better of it. “Charm is cheap,” she says. “He was a slimeball. And even if most people didn’t know what he was -- how come the ones who did know let him get away with it?”

“He was powerful,” Caleb says. His eyes are unfocused, blank, seeing only the past. “He made big promises, but he kept them. He could offer -- so much. As long as you were on his good side. And you really, really didn’t want to be on his bad side.”

Beau snorts. “I think we got on his bad side today,” she says. “Worked out all right for us.”

“Barely.” 

She shrugs. “We’re alive, aren’t we?”

He doesn’t answer, still lost in thought, in memory. In the day Trent Ikithon approached him and told him that he thought Caleb -- no, Bren -- had the potential to be one of the most powerful wizards in the Empire. Told him that he could teach him, train him. Bren was young, was new at the Academy, but he had seen enough to know that Ikithon was Somebody. Ikithon promised that Bren could be Somebody too. He promised, and Bren believed him. 

_ How did they let him get away with it? _

He remembers learning how to make fire burn without catching, learning control over the smallest spark and the raging inferno. He remembers learning to torture, to punish, to interrogate, to threaten, to kill. He remembers the power, remembers the complete belief that he was doing the right thing. 

_ How did he get away with it? _

He remembers overhearing his parents’ conversation -- remembers it like a dream, the enchantment lifted, but he can still hear the false words. He can still feel his horror, and then his anger. He can still feel his certainty in what he had to do.

_ That man was a monster, _ Beau had said. But if people hadn’t seen it in Ikithon, perhaps Beau couldn’t see it in Caleb. Couldn’t see what Ikithon had made him, what he still was. 

Caleb had spent years dreaming of the day he might kill the man who caused the death of his parents. But perhaps a part of him had always known that it wouldn’t be enough. That there would still be unfinished business, until he carried things through to the end -- to the only logical end.

“Beau?” Another quiet voice carries down the darkened hallway, interrupting his thoughts. “Are you out here? Oh -- hello Caleb!”

There’s no mistaking the accent, no mistaking Jester’s soft shape. 

“I’m here,” Beau says. “Come sit with us.”

As Jester joins them, sitting down on Caleb’s other side, Caleb can’t decide whether he feels grateful for the company or suffocated by it. He wishes he were alone. He worries what would happen if he were alone. 

“What are you guys doing?” Jester asks as she settles against the wall.

“Petting Frumpkin,” Beau says. 

Jester reaches out, giving Frumpkin a gentle scratch. The center of so much attention, Frumpkin looks like he might pass out. Caleb envies him. He wishes he could sleep. A few hours of blank unconsciousness sounds very appealing right now. But as exhausted as he is, his mind fuzzy around the edges, he still feels wide awake.

“How are you feeling?” Jester asks suddenly. Caleb glances as her for a moment, then away. 

“I’m a little sore,” Beau says after a moment. “I think I fractured my hand, punching that dick of a guard. Stupid armor.”

Jester reaches out a hand that glows faintly with divine magic. She touches Beau’s hand, and the light flares brighter, then goes out. 

Beau lets out a soft exhale. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m okay, though. Tired. But in a good way, you know? In a way that says I did something worthwhile today. I always feel that way after a good fight.”

Jester grins, her sharp teeth gleaming white. “Or a good f-”

“I am also tired,” Caleb interrupts, hoping to derail the conversation before it gets too deep into Jester’s favorite subject. Too late, he realizes that his words draw their eyes back to him, concern and questions floating just below the surface. 

“Are you?” Jester says.

Caleb considers going back to silence. He considers returning to his bed, resigning himself to staring at the ceiling alone for hours. He considered standing up and leaving. 

But he doesn’t.

“I am tired,” he repeats softly. “I have been carrying this weight for so long, sometimes it feels like a part of me.”

The girls are silent on either side of him. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I want to feel victorious,” he says at last. “I want to feel relieved. But I just feel… tired.”

“Some deaths aren’t all cheers and free drinks,” Beau says. “Some are just necessary.”

“Ikithon needed to die,” Caleb agrees. “But I have been dreaming about this day for so, so long. Now it is finally here.”

“And?” Jester asks.

Caleb shrugs. “And nothing.” It’s the most honest answer. He feels nothing. 

Silence hangs between them for a long moment. 

“Well,” Jester says at last. “I feel...” She thinks. “I feel proud of us,” she says. “I feel like we did something important. Something good.” She smiles at Caleb. “I think your parents would be proud of you too.”

Caleb goes still. “My parents are dead,” he says.

“And now the person responsible for that is dead too.”

“Is he?” He doesn’t mean to say it aloud, it’s barely a whisper, but it’s out. It’s said. And it’s true.

“Caleb,” Jester says, and then stops. He can feel her eyes on him, soft and worried, can feel Beau’s careful gaze on the other side.

“Who do you  _ think  _ is responsible for your parents’ deaths?” Beau asks at last.

Caleb closes his eyes. That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s complicated. “You always tell me that it wasn’t my fault.”

“Do you ever believe it?”

Another complicated question. He doesn’t answer.

“Is the weapon responsible for the harm it causes?” Jester asks softly. “Or is the wielder?”

“Aren’t they both guilty?” Caleb says. “Take away the weapon, take away the harm.”

He doesn’t even realize that his hand has settled on his belt knife until Beau’s fingers are locked around his wrist. 

“Don’t make me take away  _ your _ weapons,” she says.

Caleb looks down at his hand in surprise. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t -- I didn’t--”

“It’s okay,” Beau says. “But it kinda answers the question, doesn’t it?”

“Which one?” Caleb asks. There are so many, he’s lost track. 

“Several of them, really,” Beau says. “Who you think is responsible. Why it doesn’t feel different. Whether you’re okay.”

He feels Jester’s hand squeeze his comfortingly. “We can work on that,” she says. “We can change those answers. Together.”

Caleb wishes he had her optimism, her naïveté. He wishes he believed in the world the way she did. He wishes he believed in change the way she did.

“I think I may be too old for that kind of change,” he says.

“That’s stupid,” Jester says. “There’s no such thing. Just look how much you’ve changed since we first met!”

“Have I?”

It’s a lie, he knows he has, but it’s still hard to look at straight on. He still feels so similar, so damaged, so  _ dangerous _ . But now he’s surrounded by all these other people, most of whom are also damaged or dangerous (or both) in their own ways. Nott, who feels like her body is not her own. Yasha, who feels responsible for the death of the person she loved most. Fjord, who found himself tied to a being so much more dark and powerful than he ever realized. He is not so different.

“You used to be so guarded,” Jester says. “You used to be so calculating. And not that you aren’t now, but… you let us in. You let us see you. You see us. You see us as friends, as family, not just travel companions. You -- I think -- you trust us. And we trust you.”

Caleb wants to tell her they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t trust him. He’s dangerous. He’s a weapon. He’s a liability. 

“We trust you,” Beau echoes, her eyes piercing into him in that way that says she knows exactly what he’s thinking. “We  _ know _ you. We know your mistakes. We forgive you. We know the person you’ve become.”

“You don’t have the power to absolve me.”

“Maybe not,” Beau says. “But do you have the right to place the blame?”

Caleb gives her an incredulous look. “What do you mean?” he says. “I know what I did. I was there. I saw it. I  _ did _ it. What more right is there?”

“Would  _ they  _ blame you?”

“I can’t imagine how they couldn’t.”

“I don’t,” Beau says. “Jester doesn’t. Nott doesn’t. None of us do, really.”

“That’s different. I didn’t kill you.”

“You’ve come close,” Beau says with a wry grin. “That time you were possessed.”

Caleb shifts uncomfortably. He’s always hated that memory, for a number of reasons.

“Yasha too,” Jester says. “We almost lost Fjord--” Her voice catches for a moment, but she pushes on. “But we got her back. We forgave her. We fought for her. Because it wasn’t her fault.”

Caleb knows Yasha still has nightmares she won’t talk about, still wakes up with eyes wild and her mouth dripping blood from biting her tongue to keep from screaming. He sits with her sometimes. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know what he could possibly say. They both carry the same weight, too many times over, but he doesn’t have any advice for how to bear it, much less how to put it down.

“And anyways,” Beau continues, “why do you get to decide what justice looks like?”

“How do you mean?

“What is justice but what the people who have been wronged decide it is?” Beau asks. “Injustice is taking away power, so justice must be restoring it.”

“That’s why we get to forgive Yasha,” Jester says. “That’s why when it took Fjord a little longer -- we understood.”

“That’s why I wouldn’t let you do anything to my parents,” Beau says. “When Jester wanted to rip my father a new one -- and believe me, it was tempting.”

“Offer still stands,” Jester says perkily.

Beau laughs. “It would be fun to watch, maybe,” she says. “But it wouldn’t fix anything. It’s not what I want.”

“And you get to choose,” Jester agrees. 

Beau looks back to Caleb. “I know my parents,” she says. “And you know yours.” 

Caleb sometimes wonders if he does. He was away so much, it sometimes felt like they were strangers. They were proud when he started at the Academy, but he wonders if they wouldn’t be disgusted by what he became. 

“I’ll be the first to admit that I know fuck all about functional parent-child relationships. Never had one of those, not by a longshot.”

Caleb says nothing. 

“But,” Beau continues, “it seems like your parents… it sounds like they were good people.”

“They were.”

“And it sounds like they loved you a lot.”

Caleb looks down. “They did.”

“Do you really think this is what they would want?”

Caleb laughs, harsh and bitter. “They didn’t  _ want _ any of this. They didn’t want me to be the weapon of a corrupt state, they didn’t want to die. It happened anyways.”

“The past happened,” Beau agrees. “The future is still changeable.”

The future. Caleb is still somewhat astonished by how much future he’s had. He hadn’t expected to live nearly this long. He’s still not sure whether he’s grateful or not.

“Do you think your parents would want you to die?” Beau asks.

Caleb opens his mouth to answer -- but he can’t. His death was never a question, and yet, here he stands. He’s guilty, unquestionably so, and yet -- would his parents want him dead? In spite of everything? He can’t imagine their forgiveness, can’t imagine deserving it, but for as long as he’s hated himself -- he can’t picture them doing so. 

“And if they wouldn’t want you to die,” Beau says, after it becomes clear Caleb isn’t going to speak, “would they want you to survive or to  _ live?_”

Caleb remembers the day he was accepted into the Academy, how proud his parents were, how excited.  _ Think of all you can accomplish, _ his mother had said.  _ We know you’re going to do amazing things, _ his father had said.  _ We’re so proud of you, _ his mother had said.  _ We love you, _ his father had said. 

“Would they want you to plod along, going through the motions of life, eating and drinking and sleeping because you have to but never really enjoying it?” Beau continues. “Or would they want more for you?”

Caleb remembers how as his studies grew more intense, he had less and less time for his parents. He remembers skipping dinners to pore over ancient texts, remembers coming home late and exhausted, remembers his parents waiting up for him but only exchanging a few sentences before he crawled upstairs to bed. He remembers the letters when he was away for weeks, remembers how they never gave up on him. Remembers how they always wanted to hear everything, always asked about his friends as well as his studies.

“How…” Caleb searches for the words to the question, unsure which question he’s even trying to ask. “I don’t know if I know how to be that. Even for them.”

“Be what?” Jester asks. “Caleb? Bren? You can be either.”

Caleb shakes his head. “Happy,” he says. “Alive.”

Beau’s leg is warm and solid against his. “You just live,” she says. “Without conditions. Without shoulds. Without guilt.” Caleb grimaces at that, and Beau gives a wry grin. “I didn’t say it was easy,” she says. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done. But also the best.”

She stares into the darkness of the hallway, her eyes fixed on something Caleb can’t see. He waits. 

“I used to try,” she says. “I was willing to change  _ anything  _ about myself to be who they wanted me to be. I tried so hard to be the perfect son -- but I never could be, because I wasn’t a son. And I sure as hell wasn’t perfect.” She swallows. “The day I decided to stop trying -- was the most freeing day of my life. But it was also one of the most painful. Because I had to let go. Of my parents, of my hopes for a real family. Of someone I’d thought I could be.” She looks at Caleb. “You said someone has to die,” she says. “But it doesn’t have to be all of you. Just the part of you that it’s time to leave behind. I was dying, trying to kill the part of myself that my parents didn’t love. So to survive, I killed the part of me that wanted to be anyone else.”

Caleb considers her words. He wants to believe them, wants it almost as much as he can remember wanting anything -- for himself, at least. He tries not to want things. It’s the easiest way to never be disappointed.

But it’s lonely. It’s tiring. It’s… nothing. Caleb is tired of being afraid, tired of being guarded, tired of being tired. He wants to believe that maybe there is another way.

He pushes himself to his feet, his bones protesting their long motionlessness on the unyielding wooden floor. He winces, straightening, and turns to look at himself in the mirror. He sees the haggard hair, sees the places skin stretches tight over bones with too little meat on them, sees eyes that hold more ghosts than many men see in a lifetime. He looks the man in the mirror in the eye, holding his gaze, holding his breath. He repeats the words in his mind, over and over, until he thinks he just might be able to mean them.

“This is for my parents,” he whispers. “This is for everything you broke. This is for everything you built from the ashes. This is for everything I could have been and everything I became and everything I will be. This is--” His voice cracks. “This is the end of you. This is the beginning of me. This is goodbye.” He pauses, uncertain, then continues. “And this is thank you.”

And then he turns and walks away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me on this journey! Feel free to drop a kudos or a comment -- I love hearing from readers. What details stuck out, what lines you enjoyed, what surprised you, anything you'd like to share, I'd love to hear about. Or send me a [message](https://loveislarryislove.tumblr.com/ask) \-- I'd love to have more Critter friends :)
> 
> If you'd like to share this fic, feel free to reblog [this post](https://loveislarryislove.tumblr.com/post/187928741603/kill-the-monster-chapter-1-criticalrolemance) \-- or make your own!


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